I was in a relationship with a classical pianist for a time. Debbie was the great love of my life. Losing her nearly finished me. Some times I miss her still. She could also often be completely psychotic. I don't miss that.

In any case, I spent thousands of hours listing to her practice. From finger exercises to committing long pieces to memory to playing and practicing all that she had learned. She even taught me to do a duet with her one Christmas.

My favorite piece of classical piano then, as now, was Waltz in C Sharp Minor by Chopin. Debbie played it to perfection although probably not quite as well as Vladimir Horowitz who performs it here.

There are time when people and orgianizations are so stupid it takes ones breath away. This is one of those occassions. Christians are extremisis? What are they going to do, love someone to death? Open up one too many soup kitchens? Maybe they are going to do one good deed too many? Perhaps they are too meek, too loving, too kind?

This kind of indoctrination, this in-your-face anti Christianity bias needs to be ended. Christianity is extreme but Islam isn't? I see. They are pro traditional marriage like nearly the entire world was up to five years ago. Perhaps that makes them extremists.

What is wrong with these people?

Regarless what this presentation suggests neither the Army nor the rest of government gets to prohibit the free exercise or relgion.

It boggles my mind that so many do not even see that the US government is the the slipping into extremisim.

A U.S. Army Reserve training brief on extremism and extremist organizations puts evangelical Christianity at the top of the list of groups soldiers should watch out for, and avoid.

According to the Power Point presentation, obtained and posted online by legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, the Army Reserve in Pennsylvania considers evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Mormons as dangerous as the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and Hamas.

Because “ordinary” is subjective, no religious group would label itself extreme or its doctrine “extremism.” However, religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world; every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only “right way” and that all others are practicing their faith the “wrong way,” seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, which endorses priests to work in the military and at VA Medical Centers, chastised the Army for the presentation in a statement issued Thursday: “The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist.”

The list of groups used in the presentation appears to have come from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has applied a “hate group” label to Christian organizations based on their beliefs about homosexuality.

According to the archdiocese, the Army Chief of Chaplains office investigated the training module and found it an isolated incident not condoned by the Department of the Army. It urged the military’s commanders to take steps to prevent similar training sessions in the future.

In addition to labeling evangelical Protestants and Catholics as extremists, the training module says soldiers are prohibited from supporting “extremist organizations” by attending public rallies and meetings or taking leadership roles in the groups.

Chaplain Ron Crews, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and the executive director for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, also condemned the presentation.

“Men and women of faith who have served the Army faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States,” he said in a statement. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

The snow is mostly gone. Given another week it will all be gone. So what is the forecast for tomorrow? I'm glad you asked. The forecast for tomorrow is for 10 cm of snow. It is enough to break your heart.

This is Thursday and so I am at my parents place tonight. Tess is on shift change. Of course if we are going to have 10 cm of snow then I cannot do any yard work here tomorrow. I might as well have stayed at Tess'. Of course this does give me an excuse to go to bed early where I can lay and read without interruption or doze if I so desire. I can also go to sleep without waking up since Tess always wakes me up when she comes to bed two hours after I have.

I picked three-year-old grandson Silas up from day care this afternoon and took him home. He didn't know I was coming so it was a surprise to him. When he saw me he said, "Grampa, I missed you." Then he came running into my arms for a very long hug. Of course it has only been four days since he had seen me but apparently it was long enough to miss me and long enough for an extra special hug. On the way home we played "I spy with my little eye." We made a joke out of it when we both kept picking something that was yellow. And that, my friends, made for a perfect day no matter what else went on. It does not get any better than having a three year old hug you and kiss you without being asked and telling you they missed you.

I like this guy. I have respect for him. He is not afraid to speak the truth and speaking the truth in his circles cannot be at all popular. I do not and cannot respect his lifestyle but I respect the courage it took to make this statement. Standing up for the truth is never easy and in his case even less so. May his tribe increase.

Traditional marriage has a unique proponent in Doug Mainwaring, the openly gay co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots who lives with his ex-wife to co-parent their two adopted sons.

Mainwaring divorced his wife to explore his homosexual desires, but in a piece for Public Discourse he explained how he discovered over the course of a decade that “creating a family with another man is not completely equal to creating a family with a woman.” He also found that “denying children parents of both genders is an objective evil. Kids need and yearn for both.”

Mainwaring notes one instance when he saw his rough and rowdy 16-year-old son kiss his mother. “With two dads in the house, this little moment of warmth and tenderness would never had occurred. … To be fully formed, children need to be free to generously receive from and express affection to parents of both genders.”

Mainwaring went on to explain that to do what is best for his children, he moved back in with his ex-wife and has denied his sexual impulses. Rather than feeling repressed, he believes it has led to psychological health and his family’s flourishing. Men who make their homosexuality the dominant aspect of their lives diminish other aspects of their lives socially, familially, emotionally, and intellectually, Mainwaring wrote.

“Gay and lesbian activists, and more importantly, the progressives urging them on, seek to redefine marriage in order to achieve an ideological agenda that ultimately seeks to undefine families as nothing more than one of an array of equally desirable ‘social units,’ and thus open the door to the increase of government’s role in our lives,” he writes.

Mainwaring is quick to admit that his opinions don’t take root in tradition and religion, but in his experiences. He said he wholeheartedly supports civil unions for homosexual couples. It’s same-sex marriage he doesn’t agree with.

“Genderless marriage is not marriage at all,” he wrote. “It is something else entirely. Marriage is not an elastic term. It is immutable. It offers the very best for children and society.”